International Journal of Bilingual Education and

Bilingualism

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rbeb20

Becoming bilingual in two-way immersion:

patterns of investment in a second-grade
classroom

Laura Hamman-Ortiz

To cite this article: Laura Hamman-Ortiz (2020): Becoming bilingual in two-way immersion:
patterns of investment in a second-grade classroom, International Journal of Bilingual Education
and Bilingualism, DOI: 10.1080/13670050.2020.1783637

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2020.1783637

Published online: 28 Jun 2020.

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM
https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2020.1783637

Becoming bilingual in two-way immersion: patterns of investment

in a second-grade classroom
Laura Hamman-Ortiz
University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This article explores how second-grade students in a Spanish/English two- Received 20 August 2019
way immersion (TWI) program make sense of becoming bilingual. Drawing Accepted 11 June 2020
upon the expanded model of investment theory, I examine how and why
KEYWORDS
students in this classroom “invest” in their emerging bilingualism, Bilingual education; bilingual
attending to the similarities and differences in the sense-making of students; ELL; identity
Latinx students and their non-Latinx peers. Findings reveal that students construction; language
across linguistic backgrounds held similar understandings of the ideologies; two-way
perceived benefits of bilingualism, including bilingualism for global immersion
citizenship, to help others, and to increase their employment
opportunities. Students sense-making differed, however, when it came
to the uniqueness of the bilingual experience. That is, among White
English home language students, there was a shared discourse of
bilingual exceptionalism—their bilingualism making them ‘feel special,’
as if they had ‘a secret language’—while Latinx students framed
bilingualism as a ‘normal’ phenomenon. I consider these findings in
relation to systemic patterns of control and spaces of resistance and
discuss implications for fostering and sustaining equitable models of
bilingual education.

Introduction
Two-way immersion1 (TWI) has become a popular form of bilingual education in the United States,
lauded for its integrative approach to language learning as it joins students from majority and min-
oritized language backgrounds in the same classroom. While there has been increasing attention to
what it means to integrate languages in bilingual programs—accompanied by the rise in more
flexible and dynamic ways of conceptualizing bilingualism (Cummins 2014; García 2009)—much
less attention has been given to what it means to integrate students in two-way bilingual classrooms.
Indeed, as de Jong and Howard (2009) note, the benefits of integrating students in TWI are largely
‘taken for granted’ (83). This assumption can be problematic, as evidenced by a growing body of criti-
cal scholarship cautioning that two-way programs may be reinforcing the same inequities they claim
to combat. Studies have shown, for example, that TWI programs are often framed around the inter-
ests of White, English-speaking families (Dorner 2010; Freire, Valdez, and Delavan 2016) and may be
commodifying minoritized language speakers—as ‘language models’ for their peers—toward the
benefit of an already empowered group (Cervantes-Soon 2014; Valdés 1997).
While this critically-oriented scholarship has illuminated issues of power and privilege in TWI, there
remains a scarcity of research exploring how students make sense of bilingualism and their emerging
bilingual identities within TWI contexts (Feinauer and Howard 2014). This is a significant gap, as
understanding student perspectives and experiences is central to the design of equitable learning

CONTACT Laura Hamman-Ortiz laura.hamman@colorado.edu

© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 L. HAMMAN-ORTIZ

spaces. Much of what is known about student sense-making in TWI has been drawn from surveys and
self-assessments (e.g. Bearse and de Jong 2008; Lindholm-Leary 2016; Lindholm-Leary and Borsato
2001), sources that, while valuable, do not provide more nuanced and contextualized understandings
of student experiences. Additionally, many of these studies consider the perspectives of upper
elementary and secondary students; we know much less about how young learners are experiencing
two-way bilingual spaces. In order to better understand the affordances and limitations of integrated
bilingual learning spaces, it is vital that students become (re)centered in the empirical literature.
The purpose of this paper is to critically examine how young students experience and make sense
of their emerging bilingualism in two-way bilingual classrooms. Drawing upon an expanded model of
investment (Darvin and Norton 2015) to conceptualize learner identities as socially constructed and
ideologically embedded, I explore what shapes student investment in becoming bilingual in one TWI
classroom. As there is evidence that students from different home language backgrounds have
different experiences of TWI (e.g. Bearse and de Jong 2008), I also consider different patterns of
investment among Latinx and non-Latinx children. By engaging with these differences alongside
an exploration of local microstructures of power and hegemonic ideologies, I demonstrate how
student sense-making intersects with classroom practices and offer insight into how more equitable
integrative bilingual learning spaces might be envisioned.

Framing language learning and identity

In the mid-1990s, Bonny Norton brought identity to the forefront of second language acquisition
(SLA) research (Norton 2000, 2013; Norton Peirce 1995). She argued that the field had insufficiently
theorized the relationship between learner identity and learning context, especially with regard to
how power relations shape social interactions. Norton critiqued the psychological construct of motiv-
ation—which had long been the lens in SLA research for understanding the learner’s influence on
language acquisition—and, instead, called for a sociocultural theory of learner identity. To this
end, Norton proposed ‘investment’ as a theoretical construct for exploring the multiple and varied
factors that shape a learner’s engagement with language learning. Drawing upon Bourdieusian
notions of capital (Bourdieu 1991; Bourdieu and Passeron 1977), Norton contended that learners
invest in learning a language when they believe it will provide them with access to a wider range
of symbolic and material resources (or capital). Through this lens, context and identity are fore-
grounded, with language learning recognized as ‘not simply a skill that is acquired with hard work
and dedication, but a complex social practice that engages the identities of language learners’
(Norton 2000, 132).

An expanded model of investment

In recent years, investment theory has been ‘expanded’ to address the complex factors that shape
how and why learners invest in language learning within the new global economic world order
(Darvin and Norton 2015). Darvin and Norton explain that the past two decades have witnessed dra-
matic changes in how people engage within and move across transnational and digital spaces. Given
these shifting dynamics, they contend it is no longer sufficient to analyze power asymmetries
between native speakers and language learners in isolation from larger contextual factors. Accord-
ingly, their expanded model of investment considers the relationship between structure and
agency within an increasingly interconnected world and examines how microstructures of power
and systemic patterns of control operate across space and time.
Darvin and Norton propose examining the intersections of identity, capital, and ideology to illu-
minate how power manifests through local practices and how the value of capital shifts across
spaces (see Figure 1). Identity is the first component of this model, which Norton (2013) defines as
‘the way a person understands his or her relationship to the world, how that relationship is structured
across time and space, and how the person understands possibilities for the future’ (45). For language
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM 3

Figure 1. The Expanded Model of Investment (adapted from Darvin and Norton 2015).

learners, identity is inseparable from the process of acquiring a new language since ’every time
language learners speak, they are not only exchanging information with their interlocutors; they
are also constantly organizing and reorganizing a sense of who they are and how they relate to
the social world’ (Norton 1997, 410). Language learners also engage in ongoing positioning acts,
as they discursively make bids for particular identities and assign identities to others.
Capital is the second element of investment theory. As theorized by Bourdieu (Bourdieu and Pas-
seron 1977), capital is an economic metaphor for understanding power and control in the social
world, one that may refer to actual wealth possessed by an individual (economic capital) but also
includes the knowledge and education a person possesses (cultural capital), the relationships and
social networks of which one is a part (social capital), and the language practices one employs (lin-
guistic capital). These forms of capital do not have inherent value; rather, they gain value when
they are recognized as legitimate—becoming symbolic capital—through processes intimately
related to systemic patterns of control. To this point, Norton and Darvin offer the case study of Hen-
rietta, an 18-year-old student who participated in a study in which she learned how to navigate the
internet to find information. While Henrietta believed that digital literacy would enhance her self-
knowledge and enable her to communicate with people around the world, the authors pointed
out how limitations in her economic capital and the technological infrastructure of her local
context made it difficult for these desires to be realized. They explain, ‘Even though her desire to
engage in transnational conversations can be seen as a way to increase her social capital, how this
perceived benefit will prove to be of durable and controvertible value, that is, recognized as symbolic
capital in specific fields, is yet to be seen.’ (49, emphasis in original).
Ideology, the final component of the expanded model, is defined as ‘a complex, layered space
where ideational, behavioral, and institutional aspects interact and sometimes contradict one
another’ (43). Darvin and Norton contend that any analysis of linguistic interactions and learner iden-
tities must account for ideological forces at work, including language ideologies, as well as broader
mechanisms of power. Importantly, while dominant ideologies are recognized as powerful forces
shaping language learning experiences, ideology is still seen as a ‘site of struggle’ (44) through
which students and teachers retain agency in resisting hegemonic narratives. However, this possi-
bility for resistance is not explicitly integrated into Darvin and Norton’s conceptual model. Thus, I
4 L. HAMMAN-ORTIZ

propose that, in addition to analyzing systemic patterns of control, the model should more directly
attend to teacher and learner agency in opening up spaces of resistance—opportunities for contest-
ing ideologies and practices that privilege dominant groups—with consideration of how such spaces
impact learner investment.
In this article, I draw upon these conceptual framings to explore the complex factors that shape
TWI students’ investment in becoming bilingual. I contend that learning in two-way bilingual contexts
cannot be separated from students’ emerging sense of self, especially in relation to the (imagined)
community they seek to join and the anticipated capital they seek to acquire. Following Darvin
and Norton (2015), I find significant explanatory power in the interstices of the expanded investment
model—the areas where identity, ideology, and capital intersect—toward increasing our understand-
ing of how systemic patterns of control intersect with student sense-making of their emerging bilin-
gualism. Additionally, while investment has traditionally been applied to individual experiences of
language learning, I extend the construct to consider collective sense-making, with an eye toward
commonalities and differences in how Latinx and non-Latinx students perceive bilingualism and
experience TWI.

Investment and immersion education

Investment theory has been widely taken up in educational research to understand language learn-
ing in diverse bi/multilingual contexts. Within immersion education scholarship, investment has
explored (a) student language use/proficiency (Ballinger et al. 2017; Potowski 2004, 2007), (b)
student attitudes toward language of instruction (Babino and Stewart 2016), and (c) student experi-
ences of TWI programs (Bearse and de Jong 2008). For example, Potowski’s (2004, 2007) mixed
methods study of a fifth-grade dual language classroom revealed that students were more likely
to use Spanish with their teacher and their peers if they were invested in developing identities as
Spanish speakers. Relatedly, Ballinger et al. (2017) found that student investment in taking on particu-
lar identities shaped their language use in two third-grade immersion classrooms. Ballinger also high-
lighted the pivotal role of classroom context, as students’ divergence from the language of
instruction depended upon the extent to which ‘rule-breaker identity’ was tied to not using the
language of instruction.
Focusing on student attitudes, Babino and Stewart (2016) used investment to analyze fifth-
grade immersion students’ perceptions of language. They show how, despite students’ demon-
strated investment in bilingualism, the Latinx students in their study overwhelmingly preferred
English, both within and outside of the classroom. Similarly, Bearse and de Jong (2008)
explored secondary students’ perceptions of TWI, with a focus on how Latino and Anglo stu-
dents viewed the linguistic and cultural capital the program aims to develop. They found
that students’ ethnolinguistic backgrounds impacted their views of capital gained from bilingu-
alism. For example, Anglo students were more likely to identify bilingualism as useful for
college admission and future job prospects (i.e. instrumental motives), whereas Latino students
emphasized the importance of Spanish for cultural identity and community engagement (i.e.
symbolic motives).
This brief review of the investment and immersion literature underscores that identity is deeply
tied to language use and learning in TWI classrooms and that TWI students’ perceptions of bilingu-
alism are shaped by dominant language ideologies and their own ethnolinguistic backgrounds. My
study builds upon existing scholarship by leveraging new theoretical constructs from the expanded
model of investment, bringing greater attention to how systemic patterns of control and spaces of
resistance influence young TWI students’ sense-making of their emerging bilingualism. Following
Bearse and de Jong (2008), I also consider group differences, illuminating the differential ways
that Latinx and non-Latinx students understand bilingualism and its affordances for their future
identities.
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM 5

Context and methods

Data for this article were drawn from a yearlong ethnographic case study of a second-grade TWI class-
room that explored the relationship between classroom language practices and student sense-
making of bilingualism and bilingual learning. The full data corpus includes fieldnotes from 38 in-
class participant observations (127 h), student focus groups (n=19), and teacher interviews (n=3).
For this analysis, I primarily drew from student focus group data, although I also reviewed the
larger dataset to identify local, institutional, and ideological factors that shape student investment
in becoming bilingual.
The following research questions were examined in this study: (1) How do students in a second-
grade TWI classroom make sense of becoming bilingual? (2) What shapes their investment in this
process? and (3) What are similarities and differences in how Latinx and non-Latinx students experi-
ence their emerging bilingualism?

Setting and participants

Escuela El Bosque2 is a K-5 public charter school with a school-wide Spanish/English TWI program
located in a mid-sized Midwestern city. The school follows a 90/10 model of language allocation,
in which kindergarteners receive 90% of instruction in Spanish, and each subsequent grade receives
an additional 10% of instructional time in English until reaching a 50/50 split. At the time of the study,
the student population at El Bosque was predominately Latinx (63%), low-income (59%), and English
learners (ELs; 57%). The focal classroom included seventeen second-grade students and their teacher,
Maestra Carmen, a Latinx woman who had been teaching at the school for over a decade. That year,
Maestra Carmen’s class was comprised of mostly non-Latinx, English-dominant students (see Table 1).
Per a home language survey and performance on an annual English language assessment, six stu-
dents were identified as ELs (Spanish L1) and eleven students as native English speakers (English L1). All
of the ELs were Latinx, with four self-identifying as Spanish-dominant (Antonio, Camila, José, Diego),
one as English-dominant (Francisco), and one as bilingual (Tomás). All of the Latinx students were
born in the U.S. except Diego, who had (im)migrated from Mexico at a young age. Of the Latinx students
born in the U.S., three were of Mexican descent (Antonio, Camila, José), one was Guatemalan (Francisco),
and another had an American mother and Argentine father (Tomás). Many of the Latinx students had
visited their countries of origin and/or kept in touch with family overseas; thus, they might be better
understood as transnational, living across linguistic, cultural, and sociopolitical borders.
Of the eleven non-Latinx students, most were White (Aiden, Chloe, Dakota, Emma, Liam, Matthew,
Mia, Noah), two were African American (Isaac and Tiana) and one was Hmong American (Rose). All of

Table 1. Student Demographic Information.

Programmatic Designation: English L1 Programmatic Designation: Spanish L1
Racial/Ethnic Dominant Dominant
Student Background* Language** Student Racial/Ethnic Background* Language**
Aiden White English Antonio Latinx (Mexican) Spanish
Chloe White English Camila Latinx (Mexican) Spanish
Dakota White English Diego Latinx (Mexican) Spanish
Emma White English Francisco Latinx (Guatemalan) English
Isaac African American English José Latinx (Mexican) Spanish
Liam White English Tomás Latinx (Argentine/ Bilingual
American)
Matthew White English
Mia White English
Noah White English
Rose Hmong American English
Tiana African American English
*Per teacher- or student-identified demographic information.
**Per student-identified language dominance/preference.
6 L. HAMMAN-ORTIZ

these students were sequential bilinguals with limited contact with Spanish outside of school. On the
contrary, most Latinx students had ample exposure to English outside of El Bosque. In sum, Maestra
Carmen’s classroom might be considered an English-dominant group. However, it is important to
recognize that students almost exclusively engaged in Spanish during instructional time, due, in
large part, to the ways that the teacher privileged Spanish in the classroom.

Researcher positionality
I am a White, female sequential bilingual (English/Spanish) and a former second-grade teacher of
emergent bilingual students. Prior to the study, I spent three years in the district supporting TWI edu-
cators as a supervisor/coach for a master’s program in ESL/bilingual education. While I make no
claims at being an ‘insider’ in Maestra Carmen’s classroom, especially with regard to students’
unique bilingual experiences, I bring knowledge and experiences to this study that I believe
enhanced my analysis of the learning context and student sense-making. All interpretations of the
data and findings are, ultimately, my own.

Data collection and analysis

Across the 2016–2017 school year, I conducted weekly participant observations in the focal classroom
to document classroom discourse practices. Field notes were taken at all observations and most
observations were also video-recorded to facilitate close discourse analysis. Focus groups with stu-
dents were conducted at two points during the school year to gather information about their
sense-making around bilingual learning. During the first focus groups, students were placed in lin-
guistically heterogenous groups of 4–5 students; upon observing that the English L1 students
tended to dominate in these conversations, the next focus groups were smaller (2–3 students) and
in linguistically homogenous language groups. Focus group prompts (asked in English and
Spanish) included: (1) What does it mean to be bilingual? (2) Are you bilingual? How do you
know? (3) How does it feel to be bilingual? and (4) What is it like to learn in bilingual class? The
teacher was also interviewed at three strategic points across the year to access her perspectives
on students’ language learning, which helped triangulate my interpretations of student data.
All sense-making data were transcribed and uploaded into the qualitative analysis software
MAXQDA. Observational data were also reviewed and key classroom language events were identified
and transcribed for analysis (see Hamman-Ortiz 2019 for details). Data analysis was then conducted in
several stages. First, I engaged in multiple rounds of qualitative coding (Saldaña 2013), using deductive
codes that aligned with my research questions and theoretical framework (e.g. identity enactment,
language ideology, social capital) and inductive codes that emerged from the data (e.g. helping
others, prestige). Throughout this process, I attended to recurring patterns to identify and construct
emergent conceptual categories (LeCompte and Schensul 2010). As I moved into the second cycle
of coding, I looked for thematic similarities across the data and grouped related codes into categories.
For example, the category Becoming Citizens of the World emerged in relation to students’ perceived
advantages of bilingualism, with related codes including learning new languages, taking a multilingual
stance, traveling, translating, and meeting new people. After generating categories, I compared Latinx
and non-Latinx student data across these themes to explore similarities and differences in patterns
of investment. Finally, categories were organized thematically along the three interstices of the
expanded model of investment: (1) affordances and perceived benefits of bilingualism, (2) positioning
self and other, and (3) systemic patterns of control and spaces of resistance.

Findings
Findings reveal that students in Maestra Carmen’s classroom were highly invested in becoming bilin-
gual and were coming to see themselves as competent bilinguals. Patterns in student sense-making
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM 7

differed, however, when it came to the uniqueness of the bilingual experience. In this section, I
present representative data for each theme and consider findings in relation to classroom and insti-
tutional practices and underlying language ideologies.

Affordances and perceived benefits

Investment theory posits that learners invest in a language because of the benefits they anticipate
obtaining as a result and the ways this ‘capital’ aligns with their imagined identities. In this study, per-
ceived benefits of bilingualism tended to fall into three categories: becoming citizens of the world,
helping others, and increasing future employment opportunities. These perceived benefits reveal
how students are coming to see themselves—and who they could become—as a result of their emer-
ging bilingualism.

Becoming citizens of the world

In focus group conversations, many students related language learning to becoming a global citizen,
with bilingualism seen as a vehicle to navigate the wider world. Emma shared, ‘When I get older I
want to be able to learn a whole bunch of different languages and travel around the world so you
can like talk to people and you can try new stuff.’ Agreeing, Mia added, ‘That’s what’s nice about
being bilingual. That you can travel around the world.’ The discourse of bilingualism as a means to
travel was grounded in these students’ lived experiences: Emma had vacationed in Mexico that
year and Mia had previously traveled to Spain. In fact, many of the students had traveled with
their families to Spanish-speaking countries, including Costa Rica, Mexico, Argentina, Spain, and Gua-
temala. For Latinx students, these trips were generally connected to visiting family; for non-Latinx stu-
dents, they tended to be leisure focused. Interestingly, even students who had never traveled
internationally articulated the value of bilingualism for travel. For example, Tiana shared, ‘If you go
on a trip to Mexico and someone says something to you in Spanish and your family doesn’t know
what they’re saying, then how are you going to communicate with them?’ Similarly, Chloe
reflected, ‘ … if my family went to Mexico, then my family wouldn’t know how to speak Spanish
because they don’t, then I could translate.’ Given that neither Tiana nor Chloe had traveled
outside of the U.S., their reflections reveal how becoming bilingual was beginning to shape students’
imagined identities as world travelers.
Students also drew parallels between their successful language learning experiences at El Bosque
and their ability to learn additional languages. For example, when asked to share his favorite part
about learning at Escuela El Bosque, Noah responded, ‘That I get to learn two languages, and I
want to learn French too.’ He explained that French was ‘almost like Spanish’ and that ‘there’s a
lot of accents and stuff but I’m gonna be kind of used to it because I already know a bunch of
accents from Spanish.’ This interaction highlighted Noah’s perception of his emerging bilingualism
as laying the foundation for future success in learning an additional language. Indeed, there is evi-
dence that many students in Maestra Carmen’s class were coming to see themselves as successful
language learners, more broadly. In the focus groups, over half of students identified additional
languages they wanted to learn or had some (limited) proficiency in, including French, Portuguese,
Mandarin, German, Hawaiian, Hmong, and Korean. These multilingual references emerged from
Latinx and non-Latinx students alike and were unprompted (i.e. students were not asked about
other languages). Interestingly, students often claimed a language as part of their repertoire even
if they only knew a word or two. For example, Tomás shared that he knew Portuguese after teaching
the class how to say hello (‘Oi’) and Matthew reflected, ‘Actually, I know three [languages] ‘cause I
know how to count to four in Korean.’ Thus, students associated bilingualism with increased oppor-
tunities to travel and the ability to learn additional languages, viewing their budding language abil-
ities as a means to enhance their social and cultural capital and promote their engagement with the
wider world.
8 L. HAMMAN-ORTIZ

Helping others
Bilingualism was also seen by many students as a means to help others, particularly through serving
as translators. For example, Aiden discussed how his knowledge of Spanish supported his family,
explaining, ‘We’re breeders for puppies and sometimes people come all the way from Mexico just
to get a little puppy and so I have to translate for my mom and dad.’ In this way, Aiden’s bilingualism
had a direct impact on his family’s economic capital, as he facilitated communication with interested
buyers from Mexico. Noah also employed his bilingualism to help his parents with their Spanish
homework, as they were taking evening Spanish classes at El Bosque.3 He explained, ‘My parents
needed help translating Spanish to English or from English to Spanish.’ Thus, Noah’s bilingualism
served as linguistic capital, supporting his parents in their language learning pursuits. While, in
general, non-Latinx students did not frequently use Spanish outside of school, these examples
demonstrate that some of them did have authentic reasons for using Spanish outside the classroom,
which likely shaped their investment in learning the language. Indeed, during an interview, the class-
room teacher noted that both Noah and Aiden were highly invested in using and learning Spanish.
Additionally, as noted in the previous section, many students connected bilingualism to the potential
to help others, as in Tiana and Chloe’s examples of translating for their families, which certainly may
have contributed to their investment in becoming bilingual.
Interestingly, the connection between bilingualism and translation did not emerge in any of the
focus groups with Latinx students. This absence was notable since it is likely that Latinx students fre-
quently served as translators for their parents. One possible reason for its absence is that these trans-
lation experiences may not have been viewed as novel—or perhaps were not even identified as
evidence of bilingual expertise. Indeed, Orellana (2009) has noted how the complex language broker-
ing that bilingual children engage in to support their families with everyday tasks (e.g. calling the
doctor) often goes unnoticed or unrecognized as such. It is important to acknowledge that students
were not specifically asked about translation and that these reflections from Noah and Aiden
emerged during the second round of focus groups (when students were interviewed in linguistically
homogenous groups); that said, it is still worth considering that its absence in the data from Latinx
students may reveal a difference in how students from different linguistic backgrounds were viewing
translation—as a unique skill or as normal, everyday practice.

Increasing employment opportunities

Another perceived benefit of bilingualism was its ability to increase students’ future job prospects.
This discourse arose most frequently from Latinx students, although it was also referenced by
some of the non-Latinx students. As an example of the latter, Mia discussed bilingualism as an
avenue toward becoming a bilingual teacher, a stance likely influenced by the fact that her
mother was a teacher at El Bosque. When asked about the affordances of bilingualism, Mia shared,
‘We could grow up to become teachers that are bilingual and then we could help students.’ Later
in the conversation, Mia emphasized, ‘And you can get jobs that you have to be bilingual.’ Thus,
Mia recognized bilingualism as an avenue toward future employment opportunities, which likely
shaped her investment in becoming bilingual. At the same time, her choice of modals (i.e. ‘could’
and ‘can’) reveals that she viewed bilingualism as potentially shaping future employment, not deter-
mining it.
For the Latinx students, on the other hand, the relationship between bilingualism and employ-
ment was more explicit. During a focus group with Tomás, Francisco, and Diego, the students dis-
cussed the merits of becoming bilingual. Francisco argued, ‘Aprender bilingüe es mucho mejor que
aprender un idioma’ (Learning bilingually is much better than learning one language) and justified
his position, explaining:
Porque, como para tu trabajo. Si puedes hablar, como si hablan, si yo sólo voy a una escuela donde hablan
español y estoy en Estados Unidos y hay un trabajo donde hablan sólo ingles (.) esto sería muy difícil (.)
porque no entendería.
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM 9

(Because, like for your job. If you can speak, like if you speak, if I only go to school where they speak Spanish and I
am in the United States and there is a job where they only speak English (.) uh, this would be very difficult (.)
because I wouldn’t understand.)

In this way, Francisco shifts the conversation about bilingualism to the importance of learning
English, explaining why it would be disadvantageous to attend a school where only Spanish was
spoken, as it would make it difficult to obtain a job in the U.S. that requires English. Later, Francisco
provided several examples of such jobs, including being a ‘mail guy’ (mailman) and an editor. Tomás
agreed, emphasizing, ‘Necesitas otro idioma cuando crezcas porque estas en un país que habla otro
idioma que tú sabes’ (You need a different language when you grow up because you are in a
country that speaks a different language than the one you know). Thus, a significant factor
shaping Latinx students’ investment in becoming bilingual was their perception of the need to
learn English to be successful as adults.

Positioning self and other

A positioning lens illuminates the relationship among identity, language, and power, recognizing that
identity construction in classrooms is never a neutral endeavor. Indeed, TWI students continually
engage in positioning moves, claiming particular subjectivities and ascribing them to others. Here,
I discuss how students in Maestra Carmen’s classroom positioned themselves and their peers in
relation to bilingualism and how this positioning differed across Latinx and non-Latinx students.

Taking on bilingual identities

Students in Maestra Carmen’s class overwhelmingly viewed themselves and their peers as bilingual.
When asked, ‘Are you bilingual?’ fifteen out of the seventeen students (88%) responded affirmatively.
And, when asked who (else) in their class was bilingual, the immediate response of most students
(76%) was ‘todos’ or ‘everyone.’ Students also had mostly positive experiences to share with
regard to becoming bilingual at El Bosque. Matthew commented, ‘It’s fun because you get to com-
municate differently.’ Similarly, José described learning in a bilingual classroom as ‘muy divertido’
(very fun), and Aiden stated, ‘It just feels, like, good in my body.’ Maestra Carmen’s classroom
seemed to be a space where students could take on identities of competence (Manyak 2004), posi-
tioning themselves as competent bilinguals and able to see their peers as bilingual, too.
Despite this bilingual positioning, students still tended to associate linguistic expertise with home/
native language. When students were asked who they would seek out for assistance if they had a
question about an English or Spanish word, they generally highlighted peers’ home language as
the determining factor. For example, Noah responded, ‘Well we have a rule in our class that you
have to ask three [students] before you ask the teacher. So I would ask three of the native Spanish
speakers.’ Similarly, Dakota shared, ‘Usually I ask native Spanish speakers.’ This nativespeakerism,
or viewing the ‘native’ speaker as the expert language user, was also evident in the responses of
Latinx students. When asked who he would consult with a question about an English word, Tomás
responded, ‘Yo hubiera preguntado a, digo, voy a preguntar a Noah, Emma, y Tiana’ (I would have
asked, that is, I will ask Noah, Emma, and Tiana). When asked why, he explained, ‘Porque todos
ellos saben más inglés que yo.’ (Because all of them know more English than I do). This comment
was especially striking as Tomás was a simultaneous bilingual, with an English-dominant mother
and Spanish-dominant father, and had strong command of English. Thus, while students were
largely taking on bilingual identities, there seemed to be an underlying understanding that expertise
was still tied to ‘native’ language.

Bilingual exceptionalism
One important distinction that emerged between Latinx and non-Latinx students was the uniqueness
they affixed to becoming bilingual. Among non-Latinx students, there was a shared discourse of
10 L. HAMMAN-ORTIZ

bilingual exceptionalism—the belief that their bilingualism was something extraordinary. This dis-
course arose in the ways that these students discussed the distinctiveness of their bilingual learning
experiences. For example, when asked about learning in a TWI program, Noah commented, ‘It makes
me feel kind of special because not everyone knows how to speak two languages.’ Similarly, Matthew
compared learning Spanish to acquiring a ‘secret language,’ and Emma noted how impressed people
were that she went to a bilingual school, sharing, ‘And whenever people are like, “What school do you
go to?” “Uh, Escuela El Bosque.” They’re like, “Oh my God, you go to that school?” “Uh, yeah.” (laughs).’
By contrast, the discourse of bilingual exceptionalism was absent in conversations with Latinx stu-
dents. When José was asked about his experience learning in a bilingual classroom, he seemed
almost confused by the question, as bilingualism was, in his view, ‘normal.’

LHO: ¿Cómo es aprender en una clase bilingüe? What is it like to learn in a bilingual class?
José: ¿Una clase bilingüe? A bilingual class?
LHO: Ustedes están aprendiendo en una clase bilingüe. You are learning in a bilingual class. What is it like?
¿Cómo es?
José Me siento normal. [It feels] normal.
LHO ¿Normal? ¿Por qué? Normal? Why?
José Porque sé bien las cosas, unas palabras en inglés y Because I understand things well, some words in English and
español. Spanish.

José’s reflection stands in sharp contrast to the ‘special’ feeling that Noah articulated, reflecting an
important difference in how Latinx and non-Latinx students were experiencing the program and
coming to understand their own bilingualism. Indeed, critical scholars have noted that bilingualism
is often seen as a different sort of accomplishment for English and Spanish home language students
(Cervantes-Soon 2014; Flores 2016). Valdés (1997) argues, ‘For minority children, the acquisition of
English is expected. For mainstream children, the acquisition of a non-English language is enthusias-
tically applauded’ (417). This differential understanding of students’ bilingualism is rooted in larger
raciolinguistic ideologies, which see the linguistic practices of privileged white students as innovative
while conceptualizing those same practices produced by racialized speaking subjects as deviant (or,
in this case, unremarkable; Rosa and Flores 2017). This study reveals how the ideology of bilingualism
as exceptional for mainstream students (only) also emerges in the ways that students come to under-
stand their bilingualism.

Systemic patterns of control

The expanded model of investment also explicitly attends to ideologically-driven systemic patterns of
control that shape student investment in language learning. In Maestra Carmen’s classroom, there
were three salient practices that functioned as systemic patterns of control: managing language,
affirming language, and assessing language. In this section, I show how the symbolic dominance
(Bourdieu 1991) of English was revealed through these local (classroom-level) and institutional
(school-level) patterns of control in ways that shaped how students were coming to understand
their emerging bilingualism.

Local patterns of control: managing and affirming language

At the classroom level, systemic patterns of control manifested in the managing and affirming of
language use. Languages in Maestra Carmen’s classroom were separated by content area, with stu-
dents verbally demarcating the shift from one language to the other by chanting ‘Uno, dos, tres,
English time’ or ‘One, two, three, español por favor.’ Yet, while both languages were clearly
marked, only Spanish spaces needed to be actively regulated. For example, it was common to
hear the teacher call out ‘¡Español por favor!’ (Spanish please!) when a student used English during
Spanish instructional time, but there was no equivalent reminder for the reverse, as students
rarely used Spanish when English was the medium of instruction.
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM 11

Close management of Spanish spaces appeared to be an influencing factor on students’ language

use in the classroom. For example, one day during recess, Chloe entered the classroom and began
speaking to me in English, explaining, ‘I can speak in English because Maestra Carmen isn’t here.’
The fact that students generally did communicate in Spanish during Spanish instructional time
was a testament to Maestra Carmen’s creation of a protected space for Spanish, especially given
that students in TWI programs often use more English than the model designates (Babino and
Stewart 2016; Potowski 2007). At the same time, this active management of Spanish (but not
English) likely communicated to students that Spanish was the language that needed to be reinforced.
The differential treatment of the two languages was also evident in affirmation practices in the
classroom. Specifically, English L1 students were often celebrated for their use of Spanish while
the reverse—Spanish L1 students using English—was never explicitly noted. For example, during
a game of Hangman, Maestra Carmen affirmed Liam’s contribution, noting how beautiful his
Spanish sounded:
Liam: ¿Tu palabra tiene una ‘b’? Does your word have a ‘b’?
MC: Oo::o, que bonito se oye el español de Liam. ¿Una ‘b’ de burro Oo::o, how beautiful Liam’s Spanish sounds. ‘B’ as in burro
o una ‘v’ de vaca? or ‘v’ as in vaca?
Liam: Burro. Burro.

In another lesson, Maestra Carmen awarded Liam ‘una medalla’ (a prize medal) for sharing a com-
plete sentence in Spanish. There was evidence that this type of reinforcement was related to non-
Latinx students coming to see themselves as competent bilinguals. Liam, for example, began the
school year as a self-professed non-Spanish user but, by May, proudly proclaimed, ‘Yes I am bilingual
[because] I understand the words of Spanish and English.’ These language affirmations were notably
absent during English time: across the yearlong study, there were no recorded instances of Latinx
students being similarly affirmed for their English use. Thus, while the classroom practices of
affirming Spanish use may have fostered investment for some students, they also likely reinforced
bilingual exceptionalism by reaffirming the ‘special’ nature of the Spanish use of non-Latinx students.

Institutional patterns of control: assessing language

Systemic patterns of control also operated at the institutional level, particularly through standardized
assessments. At El Bosque, students designated as ELs took an annual assessment of English
language proficiency. On testing days, students across the three second-grade classes were separ-
ated into two groups—ELs and English proficient students—to gather the test-takers in one class-
room. On one such day, I asked Mia why she didn’t have to take the test. She replied:
Porque no hablamos español en la casa. Los que están tomando la prueba son los que hablan español en la casa.
La prueba es para ver cuánta [sic] inglés saben.

(Because we don’t speak Spanish at home. The students taking the test are the ones who speak Spanish at home.
The test is to see how much English they know.)

Mia’s response revealed her awareness that her Spanish L1 peers were being evaluated on their
mastery of English. The fact that no students were systematically evaluated on their Spanish language
development sent a clear message to students about which language was more highly valued and
reflects the symbolic dominance of English in U.S. schools and society.
These assessment practices may explain why Latinx students in Maestra Carmen’s classroom
fixated on English acquisition when asked questions about the value of bilingualism. They may
also explain why nativespeakerism was so prevalent, as students were visibly separated into
English L1 and Spanish L1 groups. As I have discussed elsewhere (Hamman-Ortiz 2019), nativespea-
kerism may have consequences for students’ bilingual development, as students often form social
groups and choose learning partners based on perceived linguistic proficiency (Lee, Hill-Bonnet,
and Gillispie 2008; Martin-Beltrán 2010), which, ultimately, may limit students’ opportunities for
language use and learning.
12 L. HAMMAN-ORTIZ

Spaces of resistance
Given these local and institutional dynamics, it may seem surprising that students in Maestra
Carmen’s classroom demonstrated asset-oriented views of minoritized languages and bilingualism.
I contend that, in order to fully understand student investment, we must also consider how the learn-
ing context facilitated spaces of resistance to contest dominant ideologies. As the most impactful data
on this theme emerged from Maestra Carmen, I focus on her actions, but recognize that students also
hold agency in resisting systemic patterns of control. Specifically, Maestra Carmen opened up spaces
of resistance through two practices: (1) requiring that all students use Spanish and (2) fostering a
community in which Latinx languages, cultures, and experiences were highly valued.
While the regulation of Spanish in the classroom has been discussed as a component of systemic
patterns of control, it can also be understood as a tactic for resisting English hegemony. Maestra
Carmen required that all students engage in Spanish during Spanish instructional time, creating a pro-
tected space for minoritized language use. Although students would occasionally use English when
sharing ideas, Maestra Carmen was quick to remind them to try to use Spanish. During this time,
Maestra Carmen also avoided using English herself, insisting, ‘No voy a usar inglés. Tú tienes que usar
español’ (I’m not going to use English. You have to use your Spanish.). The creation of separate langua-
ging spaces is not unproblematic, as it reinforces a monoglossic framing of bilingualism (García 2009);
however, it is likely that requiring students to use Spanish throughout most of the school day contrib-
uted to their perceptions of themselves and their peers as competent Spanish users and learners.
Maestra Carmen also fostered a learning space where Latinx languages, cultures, and experiences
were highly valued. She drew students’ attention to dialectal differences in Spanish and frequently
incorporated aspects of Latin American culture into the classroom. Students learned about Día de
los Muertos, Las Posadas, and Día del Niño. They transitioned between centers humming along to
‘La Bamba.’ Maestra Carmen shared stories from her childhood as a migrant farmworker, seamlessly
integrating these experiences into learning activities. For example, she taught the word ‘monoto-
nous’ to students using the sentence, ‘When I was working in the fields, it was very monotonous.
The same thing from five in the morning to nine at night.’ Through these practices and others,
Maestra Carmen created a space where the experiences of non-dominant peoples were centered
in the curriculum. Within this context, there is evidence that her Latinx students were developing
a sense of pride in their collective identity, as echoes of ‘being Latino’ reverberated throughout
student interviews. Many of the non-Latinx students were also fascinated by Mexico and, as
already noted, expressed a desire to visit. Thus, in considering student investment, it is essential to
acknowledge the role that these spaces of resistance played in resisting hegemonic ideologies
and validating non-dominant languages and language speakers.
That said, it is important to reiterate that this study took place in a classroom comprised of mostly
English-dominant students, situated in Midwestern town that was largely English monolingual. In this
context, decentering English and dominant narratives through actions such as creating protected
spaces for Spanish can be understood as practices of resistance, initial steps toward the larger
project of critical consciousness (Cervantes-Soon et al. 2017). The (re)enforcement of monolingual
spaces in other TWI contexts can have very different outcomes and often works directly against
equity-oriented aims. And, even within this context, Maestra Carmen later came to see the lack of
spaces for dynamic languaging as problematic (see Hamman 2018). At the same time, I contend
that the instructional spaces for Spanish use (only) and the emphasis on non-dominant narratives
were key factors contributing to student investment in bilingualism.

Discussion and implications

Young learners in bilingual programs are often colloquially referred to as ‘sponges,’ instinctively—
and unconsciously—soaking up language. Thomas and Collier (2002) present this sentiment
through a parent’s reflection on her child’s participation in French immersion: ‘Even in math concepts
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM 13

in French, she just picks it up like a sponge … and it has not bothered her English. It’s amazing, just
wicked amazing!’ (60, emphasis mine). The ‘sponge myth’ has been rebuked by scholars from a
language acquisition perspective, arguing that there is a high degree of variation among individual stu-
dents with regard to L2 acquisition rates (Genesee, Paradis, and Crago 2004). However, I contend that
we need to rethink the sponge metaphor from the stance of students-as-sensemakers, as this meta-
phor may lead us to believe that young bilingual learners are not actively reflecting upon what it
means to become bilingual or, further, that they are not critical consumers and (re)producers of domi-
nant language ideologies. On the contrary, this study reveals that TWI students are constantly making
sense of bilingualism and are deeply cognizant of the ways that languages ‘live a real life’ (Bakhtin 1981,
292), offering particular (perceived) affordances for travel, employment, and communication and exist-
ing within hierarchical systems that privilege dominant languages and language varieties.
This study also demonstrates the importance of attending to patterned differences in the sense-
making and experiences of Latinx and non-Latinx students. While students, as a whole, were invested
in becoming bilingual and were beginning to see themselves as competent language learners/users,
there were clear distinctions in how they understood the imperative of bilingualism—that is, whether
they viewed bilingualism as necessary for future success (Latinx students) or as augmenting future
options (non-Latinx students). Relatedly, there were significant differences in how students under-
stood the uniqueness of their bilingual experiences, with non-Latinx students describing their bilin-
gualism as exceptional while Latinx students viewed their bilingualism as ‘normal.’ These
understandings are reflective of broader language ideologies within U.S. society, including English
hegemony and the normalization of monolingualism. It is important to recognize how microstruc-
tures of power within the school and classroom may have been unwittingly perpetuating these
understandings, privileging English through assessment and language management practices and
reinforcing monolingual normativity and bilingual exceptionalism through the affirmation of (only)
Spanish learners in the classroom. That said, the spaces of resistance enacted by Maestra Carmen pro-
vided a means to resist hegemonic ideologies, offering counternarratives that certainly shaped
student investment in becoming bilingual and how students were coming to understand themselves
and one another. Of course, it is unlikely that these practices alone are enough to counter dominant
ideologies and institutional practices in TWI programs.
There are several clear implications from this study for research, policy, and practice. First, without
denying the importance of English language assessments for funding and accountability, this study
calls into question assessment practices that privilege English. In order to combat English hegemony,
it is vital that Spanish assessments be afforded an equally meaningful position in TWI programs.
Second, while scholars have argued that positioning students as competent bilinguals (even before
they are) can be a powerful instructional strategy in TWI classrooms (Palmer et al. 2014), this study
sheds a cautionary light on this practice, revealing how the bilingualism of Latinx and non-Latinx stu-
dents may be differentially taken up in the classroom. Educators must engage in critical reflection on
how classroom practices—even those aimed at affirming minoritized languages—may, in fact, be per-
petuating bilingual exceptionalism. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this study demonstrates the
need to engage with student sense-making, recognizing that Latinx and non-Latinx students may have
different reasons for investing in their bilingual learning experiences. Fitts (2006) warns that the
emphasis on equality in TWI may actually serve to ‘gloss over the reproduction of inequity’ (339).
Indeed, in order to for TWI programs to truly become more equitable learning spaces, we must (re)cen-
ter students in scholarship and in practice, attending to who they are and what they bring and the
differential ways that they are coming to understand bilingualism, themselves, and others.

Notes
1. In this article, I am intentionally using the common term for this model (“two-way immersion”), although I align
with critical scholars who are argue that the removal of the “b-word” (Crawford 2004) is an untethering of bilin-
gual education from its politicized history as an issue of social justice for language minoritized communities.
14 L. HAMMAN-ORTIZ

2. All names of people and places are pseudonyms.

3. El Bosque offered both English and Spanish evening classes for parents.

Acknowledgements
I am incredibly grateful to my special issue co-editor, Deb Palmer, and to the anonymous reviewers for your thoughtful
and critical feedback on this manuscript. A special thank you to Maggie Hawkins for your guidance and support on the
dissertation project upon which this paper is based. I’d also like to thank my partner Mike for his countless reviews of this
manuscript. Finally, I’d like to thank the funders who supported this study: Language Learning Journal, Phi Kappa Phi, The
International Research Foundation (TIRF) for English Language Education, and the National Federation of Modern
Language Teachers’ Association.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor
Laura Hamman-Ortiz is a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Her research operates at
the intersection of applied linguistics and bilingual education, with a focus on translanguaging practices, biliteracy ped-
agogies, and identity negotiation. She is also currently a Coyle Fellow with the Center for Literacy Education at the Uni-
versity of Notre Dame.

ORCID
Laura Hamman-Ortiz http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7801-438X

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